Customer Reviews

Revolution: The Story of the Early Church

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WARNING!

Don't read this book unless:
* You have at least two uninterrupted hours because you won't put it down. Once started, you will want to finish it then and there.

* You are willing to re-think your perceptions of the first church. The challenges,dilemas, and victories of the apostles and the first church fathers are brought to life in unexpected ways with fresh insight.

* You are hungry for more of God and less of the ritual, formality, and dead, stale churchiness which passes for worship in too many of our churches in our generation.

If you meet these three criteria, then you will blessed. Prepare to look at your church in a whole new way!

I just got this book for Christmas. I read it in one day. All I can say about this book is WOW! I had never even heard of Gene Edwards before I stumbled across some of his books on Amazon and asked for some of them for Christmas. This guy is the real deal! My soul absolutely delighted in reading Mr. Edwards account of the Church from Christ's resurrection up until just after the founding of the Antioch church (47 AD).

Edwards details exactly the historical atmosphere of the early church in Jerusalem, Judea, and into the Gentile world. This book REALLY makes the book of Acts come alive for me. Edwards is so utterly amazing in his extrapolation of truth out of God's word!

Even though one reviewer said he did not like Edwards' interjections of comparison between the early church and the church today, I found them stunning and extremely insightful! I am a relatively new believer and my favorite part of this book is how he shows how all of the apostles and early church fathers (EVEN CHRIST HIMSELF) all had a period of "wasted" time in their life when they were becoming rooted in God. Edwards' point is to show that today's church is so worried about soul-winning that most do not even really know the Lord and do not really know the Holy Spirit because they have not spent this time of seeking God. Edwards shows that it took most of the original church founders at least 8 years of tutorage under the Apostles to become rooted in God and Christ. It can be assumed that even Christ himself underwent this period of time prior to his ministry! I thought that was a sweet point!

Would I buy this book with my own money? YES! I can almost guarantee that the Holy Spirit will move powerfully within you while you read this book! This book is phenomenal! Peace. ~ajm

Revolution: the Story of the Early Church was the first book ever written that fully recounts the development of the first churches. This book tells the story of how the first "churches" ever came to be, the first real persecution that the church as a whole ever had to suffer, and how churches came to be all over the earth. This story recounts the first seventeen years of the early churches from 37-40 a.d.
Everything began around Passover, 5 weeks after Christ's crucifixion. The Apostles and about 150 believers had gathered in Jerusalem where they fasted and prayed, waiting for the Lord to come to them and tell them what He desired them to do. Christ came to them. His spirit filled them. So mighty was He that everyone in Jerusalem was shaken and new that something miraculous, something glorious had just happened. The apostles went to the people and began to teach them about the wondrous thing which had just happened to them and the people were so interested that the apostles began to proclaim the message of Christ to all of them. Convicted and overjoyed at the message they were hearing the people sold everything they had, left their homes in other cities and moved to Jerusalem. The first church was then born.
There were over 3,000 believers sharing houses or living on the streets of Jerusalem. These people learned to live together just like a family, only with 3,000 members. They ran into small difficulties, but never anything to big to be handled. How can this be? Well, because all of those 3,000 people loved their neighbor better than themselves. They were all ready to give up their own comfort for someone else's.
It astounds me that this is how the first church ever was. When reading about the joy that they had and the struggles that they overcame, I wished so badly that the churches today would do this. How many people really care about the rest of the congregation in their church? How many people are actually totally committed to following Christ, so committed in fact, that they would die just so they could be with their Lord? The answer: very few. The answer for the amount of people in America: even fewer.
This book is convicting, especially when you read about the persecution and the joy that Christ gave these people. But what I like most is that there is joy in the work of the Lord. If we could at least be joyful for what we have been given, for the history of our people, we would be doing a lot better than we are now.
I think that this is a good book for people to read. I don't know if it will convict people or give them better ideas for their church or even their families. No matter what response people get out of this book, I believe that everyone should read it just so they understand their heritage. A.P.

Great review of the events of the Early Church. I first found this book many years ago in Africa and thoroughly enjoyed it then. After reading Edwards "Diary" series, I wanted to read this book again. So glad I found it. Well worth any effort to obtain and read!!

The Early Church, by Gene Edwards is well written in that it is easily understood, interesting, informative, and entertaining. Gene has a gift of documenting history in a story fomat. Every sincere regenerated believer should have this understanding of God's design for His church. His intent was never the Babylonian picture we have today. Today's "church" is patterened after the world. God has His "sent ones," or apostles whom He has ordained to plant and oversee local expressions of the church, which make up the corporate body of Christ. He Himself leads us to become a part of these expressions, just as it is written in the scripture, " He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Only those whose hearts were stirred went up to build His house.

Gene sets the setting for acts like i'v never seen before. It's like a novle but oh soo much more exciting. You wont wanna put this book down. An eye opener to the modern day christian. Sitting in the pews will start to seem even more dull. True Apostel ship is seen here. The Church the way God intended. A body, a bride for His son, His resting place. Get this book now! Wooo! You don't wanna miss out!

This book was influential in shaping my views on church and the christian community as a college student in the 80's. I have now purchased it again for my high school kids to read. You won't be disappointed.

I read this book about 10 years ago and the memory of it has not left my mind. Being a person ver particular about what I read, seeing that there are all manner of "voices" in the world, I found this book to be tremendously enriching.

As a matter of fact, A boirrowed a friend of mine and he has refused to give it back to me. since it was a gift, I did not know how to get it back and was just snooping around looking for someting else when I discovered the book.

Now if you really, really are interested in deeper understanding of the walk with Christ, please try and get this book together with a host of other books he has written. You will not regret it!!!!!!!

Mr. Edwards does an excellent job of presenting the history of the early church - essentially from the Resurrection through the founding of the church at Antioch. He presents the challenges that faced the church, and introduces us to men like Stephen, Phillip and Barnabas. Unfortunately, the narrative is frequently interrupted by Mr. Edward's comparisons of the early church to the present-day church. While I feel there is merit to Mr. Edwards criticisms of the church today (though some of his complaints are simply anachronisms) the constant interruptions really damage the flow of the story.

Overall, I think this book is worth reading, but I think that some of Mr. Edwards other books (e.g. The Silas Diaries) are better.